


Probable Cause

by ignorant_birds



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-24 06:08:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20701190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ignorant_birds/pseuds/ignorant_birds
Summary: It's the Summer of '84, and Jim Hopper's still getting used to having a kid again. It's great, don't get him wrong, it's absolutely great; he's just tired. Maybe that's why he screws up. Or maybe he was destined to it, the way some guys can't seem to shake the bottle, unable to fight the mess in their DNA that says one more time won't make a difference.He doesn't think it was destiny, though. He thinks destiny would've found a more streamlined tool than the cheap, blunt-trauma hammer that is Billy Hargrove.





	Probable Cause

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little human catastrophe, inspired by the talented Fleet's incredible art. Check out his stuff [here.](https://twitter.com/demonfleet)
> 
> Dead Dove rule applies, etc. Thanks.

The first time Jim Hopper sees Billy Hargrove is almost the last.

  
He thinks about that, sometimes, after it's all over. After the snot, and the broken front door, and the stain he never managed to get out of his khakis. After the trip to the ER and the humiliating attempt to make amends with the Harringtons. After the cigar burn. The puckered mark takes months to fade, the skin so resentfully slow to heal it's like his body is punishing him for all those poor choices it kept trying to warn him about.

  
It could have been avoided, he'll think, the whole nasty business. Imagine: a world where Billy Hargrove, all 5'10" and 145 enraged, hell-bent pounds of him, slipped right in and out of Jim's life without a sound save the purr of that well-loved Camaro. It could've happened so easy. You have to save your energy for where it's needed, and at that moment, for the first time in many years, Hopper's energy was needed at home. Home, where every evening was simultaneously the best thing that had happened to him in a long time, and the most exhausting minefield he'd maneuvered in months.

  
He needed to dedicate his energy to the things that mattered, but something made him sit up and shuffle the Blazer into gear, ambling onto the road after that slick blue Camaro that was only really thinking about going too fast. Some nights he'll stare into the dark and try to remember what that something was, but like many of life's turning points, the hinge on which everything swung was too small for his memory to catalogue. It's just something. Something made him move.

  
Destiny, maybe. Dumb shit luck seems more likely, because destiny likes to kick you when you're down, but dumb shit luck likes to fuck you so damn hard, for no reason at all, just when you think things are going smoothly. And despite government agents burying alien corpses in the state game lands, and a ticking time bomb of a pre-teen at home, Hopper was experiencing a period of time that could be considered smooth.

  
Jim Hopper almost never met Billy Hargrove at all, and when he thinks about that, it's a coin toss on whether it hurts.

* * *

In the town of Hawkins, Indiana, Police Chief Jim Hopper is responsible for the safety of 25,000 souls, give or take. The number may be higher. The last time he checked was somewhere in '80; here in 1984, with Summer getting comfortable again in the evenings, headed back towards porch-sitting weather, it may well be 30,000. Hopper hasn't bothered to check. He's of the persuasion that after a certain point size doesn't matter. After a certain point it's just for show, and then only TV and the Tax Man care.

  
Back when he was in New York, trying to unwind his brain from Vietnam, desperate to escape the silence of his one-room apartment, being a cop was enough work to fill hours quick as an addiction. He liked that. No, strike that, he loved it. Loved it as much as he could love anything back then. It was the only time his out-of-place ass felt balanced; shifts in NYPD kept him sane. The government-assigned therapist could have had a field day with that if Hopper had continued going long enough for it to come up (he didn't.) He clocked hours with the station instead, and volunteered for overtime, and showed up OD, and nobody gave him shit about it. Plenty of the guys were in the same boat back in '76, and nobody gave anybody much shit about anything. There was too much shit going down outside to start any indoors.

  
Things are a little different in Hawkins. Here the fine boys in blue (or khaki, if you're unfortunate enough to be the guy who sits in the biggest chair, which Hopper is) are well-staffed and well-funded; as well-funded as as a small-town police force can expect to be, anyway, which means they still have trouble finding room in the monthly budget for enough copy paper but everyone has three goddamn uniforms. There's never an issue getting two men to a car, and there's even a secretary _and_ a PCO during the daylight hours, though how much of that is protocol and how much of it is Florence refusing to quit at sixty like a reasonable woman is unknown. On a good month nobody gets pulled for OT at all. It's basically madness.

  
Which is to say, there's only so many times you can sit in the parking lot of Benny's Burgers (under new management, the faded marker-on-printer-paper sign in the window reads, as if there's anyone in town who doesn't know Mac O'Brian took it over last year after Benny's untimely death) sipping coffee, keeping half an eye on your gun, waiting for trouble to start itself, before you begin to feel like you're pulling one over on somebody. Hopper runs speed traps like it's his goddamn _job_ these days. Worse, the good folks of Hawkins seem to think it _is_. Somebody pays him to do this. Jesus jumping christ.

  
There's all the usual paperwork that comes with the biggest hat and the shiniest badge, sure, but there's also hours at a time where he just watches the road. Hits up the local businesses under pretext of making his rounds, but mostly just to catch up on weekly gossip. Gets paid to do too little to get paid for, like Hawkins thinks there aren't enough troubles in the world to keep him from clutching his fist around a styrofoam cup and waiting out another long shift.

  
Maybe that's why, one sun-dappled day in late Summer, he bothers to follow an out of towner around for an hour.

  
The noise is what pulls his gaze up: the low grumble of an impatient powerhouse. Catty-corner from where he's parked in front of Sally's Diner is a beast of a car, Chevrolet Camaro, dark blue paint job, light blue California plates. V-8, judging from the thick chortle of the engine. It's stopped at the light, boxy nose pulled way too far over the white line. He doesn't recognize it. Possibly just passing through, but then, possibly not; aren't one of the new families this season from California? His cop's brain starts flicking through the files while his mouth stays busy with his morning bagel. The Camaro gives another throaty growl; then, perhaps having noticed his presence, it quiets down.

  
His brain finds what it's looking for and snaps out the facts. Hargrove. Hargroves?That's likely Mr. Hargroves, the S pending a fact-check, and there's a wife and kids at home, and home is on Cherry Lane. Florence mentioned it because Hargrove is ex-military. She likes to highlight that part of a resume with faint distaste, most likely (certainly) due to Hopper's own behavior; Hopper always wants to reassure her that not all former members of the armed forces are surly, sexually-uninhibited alcoholics, but to be honest he's met a fair amount of vets and she's not so far off the mark. Vietnam changed plenty of guys. Changed him, too, he'd be the last to argue that - but still. The heavier drinking, at least, came later, along with the shacking up with women half his age. His mood might've always been this lousy.

  
The Camaro gives up on discretion and revs hungrily. Maybe he'll just tag along for a bit. See how much credit he owes Flo this time. Shoving the last of the bagel into his mouth, he pulls out of the diner and rolls up to the light just as it changes. He gets one decent look at Hargrove as the car loops right, and it shows nothing surprising: aviator shades, tousled golden-brown hair, broad jaw. The shades lock on him and stay locked, almost so smooth it's eerie, all the way through the turn. Hargrove sees him and wants him to know it.

  
Then the muscle kicks in under that wide hood, no hesitation, and the big ol' Camaro eats blacktop like it's candy. Not a new vehicle, he's pretty certain Chevrolet phased that grill version out in '78, but clearly well cared for. Zero to forty without a hitch.

  
He turns left and follows, taking his sweet time about it. Rolls the windows down, waving at opposing traffic when it's recognizable, letting a few cars get between his Blazer and the deep-blue muscle car. There's nothing wrong with revving your engine at a stoplight. Ex-military and driving a behemoth like that, sure, there's some possibilities that suggests, but Hopper doesn't act on possibilities. Not when he's sober.

  
But then the damn Camaro toys with him. It plays sweet in all the spots that matter: fifteen on the dot in the school zone, barely two miles over the top in front of the hospital, molasses-easy on Main. The driver actually stops for a crosswalk, green light be damned, and puts his arm out the window to wave a mother and kids across. He looks in his rearview mirror as he does it.

  
The shades overtake his expression, but Hopper is fairly certain there's a smug smile under them. He might be imagining it; but then, the asshole's arm is sleeved in a leather jacket, so he might not.

  
Sometimes it'll get so slow he almost lets Hargrove win. But he chews on nothing, and keeps his arm down real casual, and doesn't pass. Out of towner or no, nobody out-stubborns Jim Hopper.

  
The only hope shines when they hit a good length of road. Then he can see the Camaro straining, like a racehorse being handled during a stretch; it dips a little now and then, lunges a bit, wanting to get its head up and go. Each time the driver reins it in, but each time it takes him a little longer to do it. Ride's getting hungry for the road. Patience has to wear out sometime. And god, it's a beautiful car, no denying that: eats up the road so easy, Hopper has to keep an eye on his speedometer just to stay on top of the shifts. The car might not be new, but it's been lovingly tended to at home, or maybe Hargroves has a friend who gives him a good deal on tuneups. Hopper knows this because that Camaro doesn't get brought to just any shop for tri-monthly maintenance. Nobody who rents on Cherry Lane has that kind of cash. Guy's good with machines, then, or makes his friends wisely.

  
They cross over Mahogany Road, then Barker's, then Swallowtail. It's a mood-killer, seeing Swallowtail Road pass by, because ten minutes down the road is the county line and then this tease of a new neighbor is somebody else's problem. Hopper comforts himself with the thought that, given any luck, he _is_ a new neighbor, and he'll see the Camaro around. Will catch it doing sixty past the hospital at midnight, bet ten dollars if he'd bet a dime.

  
The pony car is so grease-slick, he only catches it when his glance happens to fall to his speedometer: fifty-five. Shit. He slaps the lights on like he's grabbing for a fishing pole, the line twitching just beyond his distracted grasp.

  
The Camaro does a little leap forward, like someone just instinctively stomped on the gas. For a second it's possible the idiot is going to try and bolt. Hopper's mouth cracks into a smile, unbidden. _Buddy, do me the favor_. Then, disappointingly, bright red flashes twice, little love-taps on the brakes. The Camaro waits him out a second longer - he almost wonders if the guy is going to make him use the siren - and then swings passively onto the side of the road, engine coming down in grumbling waves.

  
Hopper tucks in behind, gravel crunching slowly, already reaching for his radio. "Base, this is 23, over." Then he does something he'd chew his deputies a new asshole for: he opens his car door and gets out.

  
There's no point in alerting dispatch in the first place if you don't get the info back before you approach the vehicle. That's how you get jumped. Nonetheless, Hopper's done the beat for years. Decades, at this point. He's pulled over more people than he's willingly spoken to outside of work. Something in his gut - he'll call it experience, that sounds level-headed - tells him the man cruising this Camaro isn't going to freak and fire on him. Something about that stare back at the intersection, those mirrored aviators locked dead on him, says so. If pressed, he couldn't define it in words; 'experience' will have to do. Sue him.

  
"Roger that, 23, go ahead."

  
"Got a 10-28 on Route 32, just past Swallowtail - that's Paul Charles Edward two-three-five."

  
He won't lie, his fire's a little stoked. Even without the doldrums buildup it would be; there's just something about this car, this fresh-paint souped-up mufflered monster, that says _come try me_. And Chief Jim Hopper would like to try it very much. He's mostly on ball-busting probation these days, especially after that incident with the Merrows kids where he maybe got a little more rowdy than he needed to, and there's a deeply unsatisfied part of him that can't wait for a defensible position for it.

  
"Right you are. Hold," says Pam, who, incidentally, was the originator of his faux probationary period. Not that she has the authority to put him on such, but at a whip-smart fifty-three she's the senior PCO in the office, and therefore the most likely to be called for coverage during an emergency, so Hopper likes to stay on her good side. Not that she should care how many balls he busts, but it turns out even a secretary as defiantly serene as Florence can get tired of calls demanding an Officer Hopper be reprimanded, and Flo and Pam are thick as thieves. A police station is like politics with extra touchiness and handguns.

  
"Clean," she says a moment later, which isn't regulation, but again, Pam gets certain privileges. She's also the only one who can make a more-than-drinkable, maybe-even-good pot of coffee in the station's ancient coffee pot, which is at _least_ as important as being available and actively cognizant during 2AM statewide emergencies. "Billy Hargrove, just moved here in July. But watch it, Chief -"

  
Hopper slows his gait minutely. The driver is reclined lazily, head barely tilted enough to watch his approach from the side mirror; this close, he can already tell what Pam is going to say next, and cuts over her with it. "He's a minor."

  
"Yeah." Which should mean: he might have a record that didn't cross state lines, so no call on whether he's the type to have something on him. Which actually means: don't be an asshole. Don't get in his face and scare him. Don't rile some kid's parents because you made their prep school boy piss his prep school pants, and now they're calling the station to complain to Flo about _inappropriate conduct_. Like she or anyone in the troop is going to give Hopper more than a show of shit for conduct, inappropriate or otherwise, because he's Hawkins-bred and Hawkins-born and he came back to them after only a brief foray to the big city, and that kind of loyalty will buy you hearts in a small town.

  
"Got you, out," he says back, because he wants to focus.

  
From this angle, his ambling approach is mirrored not only by the sideview, but also by the man's - the boy's - shades, which catch the mirror image and reflect it back, where it's caught and reflected back again, and again, and again, until there's a shrinking infinity of Hoppers calmly approaching a shrinking infinity of Hargroves, like an unbreakable line in an Escher painting. If Hopper was a man taken to flights of fancy, he might think of that image later, that gradually claustrophobic line of inevitability. Then he's at the window, and Billy Hargrove looks up to meet him.

  
"Hey," greets the kid, because _Christ_, he's a kid. The strong jawbone can't mask how faint peachfuzz is the best he's got, and only the top lip at that. There isn't a single line on him: baby-smooth forehead, baby-smooth cheeks, baby-smooth hands on the wheel. Broad shoulders aren't the only thing filling out that leather jacket, judging by the way his collarbones are framed with well-carved muscle, but it's not enough to make up for the absence of places where age has pulled the skin too tight or too loose. If this boy is out of high school, Hopper will eat his hat.

  
"Hey," he greets, leaning his hand on the roof to peer down. "Don't think we've met."

  
"Think I'd remember the hat." His tone lacks the rude-dude attitude the car and jacket and aviators demand; it sounds friendly, and it's coupled with the honest jab of a hand out his window. "Billy Hargrove."

  
Hopper lets himself think a word he will never, ever, _ever _make the mistake of putting anywhere near Billy Hargrove again: defying all red flags, the kid seems _decent_. "Chief Jim Hopper," he says, and shakes.

  
The handshake is firm and brief, just like it should be, and then Hargrove returns his hand safely to the wheel. Either smart, or he's done this before. "Pleasure, sir." The _sir_ turns his voice deeper, and Hopper is reminded of the four-year guys that come back from the military; the way their voice always descends a little on the word, like it was branded so deep it has to be hauled back up, pulled from somewhere more primal than the small-talk it gets attached to. "Real nice of you to take a minute for the welcome wagon. I'm touched, Chief."

  
Hopper doesn't want it, but he feels his lip twitch all the same. God knows he's heard enough deflections to leave them utterly wrung dry of what little humor they might have had, but this delivery gets him anyway. Something about the way the kid's mouth drags the words out a little, making it audibly apparent he's trying something he knows won't work, but isn't it fun to pretend, for just a minute? Hargrove tips his shades down as he says it, his naturally pouting mouth curved into a smile, and gives a conspiratorial wink.

  
Jim Hopper has been wheedled, stonewalled, cussed at, accused, and grumbled at by dense young bucks since day one, but he's never had one so shamelessly try to _charm_ him. Especially not like this, so audaciously it borders on flirtation. Honestly? It throws his game a tiny bit.

  
Must be a California thing. He thumps the car roof thoughtlessly to regain his footing. "You know you were doing fifty-five in a forty-five zone, Billy?"

  
"Do now," says Billy cheerfully, "and I guess I was doing a little extra by the diner on the other side of town, too, since you picked up and joined the parade. How's food at Sally's?" Meaning: _you've been following me an awful long time. Were you trying to scare me into slipping up?_

  
"Fair as you'll get in a town this size. Hawkins might be flyover country, but we got plenty of space between here and there." Meaning: _you've been speeding a while, kid._

  
"Good enough to take a girl to?" Hopper had thought the kid had an unusually soft mouth for a boy; the lips are dark, and wide, and they seem to naturally hang open a little, the way models in the Sears catalogue part their lips while they stare blankly into the camera. Now he sees it's not soft at all. It's sharp as a tack, stretched lean over a sharklike grin.

  
This is more familiar ground. Hopper pretends to consider. "Well, depending on the girl."

  
"We're in the middle of Indiana. They're _all_ diner material."

  
And this is it. This is the moment that sinks the ship, as it were; the moment he could have steered clear and they could have passed, bows brushing, a little paint nicked, but no further contact and no real harm done. That disruptive wink notwithstanding, he could hassle Hargrove a little - the kid doesn't look like the type who would tattle to mommy, he looks like the type to call her a bitch to her face - and then let him be. Regular white trash that will fit right in with the rest of Cherry Lane, already racking up his first of many tickets. Except.

  
Except. The kid didn't push up his shades. He has bright blue eyes, real movie-star ones, clear as the sky without a fleck of muddling brown or green. Those blue eyes stare dully, not even the faintest twinkle of shower-room humor, no crinkle at the corners that might suggest the _ehh, ehh?_ If they were standing next to each other, Billy wouldn't be elbowing him in the side; he'd be turned slightly away.

  
The guy's already checked out.

  
Just like that, Hopper's good humor is gone. Barely three weeks here and already getting tailed, this punk has no room to dismiss anybody, not if he wants to keep out of trouble. Leaning back off his hand, he hooks his thumbs into his pockets, giving Billy another look over. The kid grins back with that wolfish leer - there's even a brief peek of tongue, which is borderline obscene - and does fuck-all to fix the distant boredom in his gaze. It's almost unsettling, like the grin and the eyes belong to two separate people.

  
"That what you were doing at fifty-five? Cruising for girls?"

  
"Nah." The teeth are bright and perfectly aligned, but there's a little too many of them, even for a dentist's ad. "Not much of my type around, to be honest."

  
"Then what's the rush?"

  
The boy's hands tighten and twist on the wheel, arms flexing like his cool front is about to give out, but then he tilts his head so the shades cover his gaze and gives Hopper a cheerful shrug, mouth dropped back to the Sears-model pout. "Must've gotten away from me. Drum solo came on, y'know how it is."

  
Drum solos are not an excuse. Not in the eyes of the state, not in the eyes of the bartender, and certainly not in the eyes of Chief Jim Hopper, who goes easy only when Pam made the coffee that morning. He's about to tell the kid exactly that when the radio crackles. "10-23, do you copy?" Speak of the devil.

  
He grabs his radio, not breaking eye contact with Hargrove. The boy's aviators give away nothing. "Yeah, Pam, I'm here."

  
"I've got a 10-55 over on Main, over."

  
"Who's on it?"

  
"That'd be Callahan, Chief."

  
Hell. Callahan. Who's probably fine, but also has a bad habit of getting ramped up. "10-12," he says into the radio, then drops it, staring back the way they came. Main's at least ten minutes down the road, more if he doesn't floor it. Pam didn't say it was a stop, either, which means the drunk driver's still moving; Callahan will end that quick, but then he'll likely get heated, and the guy doesn't have the muscle to back up his temper. It's probably fine. Maybe. Callahan deserves to learn, with the minor issue being that he never seems to.

  
"Well, damn," says Hargrove, drawing his gaze. He tips his shades back down, head down too, and if Hopper wasn't busy getting thrown the fuck off his groove again he'd sneer at the obvious posturing of it, the practiced angle that makes a few curls frame Hargrove's baby blues. California here has obviously spent hours in front of the mirror practicing. But he's busy getting thrown the fuck off his groove, isn't he, because the boy's deep voice has pitched a few tones higher, softer. Less cheerful. "I barely got the chance to sweet-talk you, Chief. You sure you gotta run?"

  
An annoyed huff escapes him before he even realizes it's coming. He wants to reach in and grip that too-tight shirt, haul the kid half out his window, and tell him exactly how much his _sweet-talking_ is worth, which is: slightly less than fuck-all. New kid needs to drop the act, fast, or Hopper will drop _him_.

  
"Chief," says Pam, no code, no goddamn regulations, because this is how the town of Hawkins does their daily: comfortably presuming nobody higher on the government ladder is ever going to take a peek in for adherence to protocol and ream their asses. Which Hopper understands, because god knows he's taken advantage of that benefit quite a few late mornings and open bottles along the way, but for Christ's sake it would be nice to have just a _little_ more professionalism now and again.

  
Which is a stick in the mud he'd never been accused of being before, but Billy Hargrove is looking up at him through surprisingly long lashes, an irritatingly knowing look in his eyes. Like he already feels he's in the clear. Like he got that just from the tone in Pam's voice, or from Hopper's behavior.

  
God help him, if there ever comes a day when Jim Hopper gets read by a west-coast weasel like this and doesn't knock him right back where he belongs, you might as well put him in the ground, because he'll be done.

  
He leans on the windowsill, his upper arm blocking a third of the window. Gets his face right in there. Talks into the radio, holding it between them like they're sharing a mic. "10-6, Pam, gimme a break." He releases the button, using that finger to get in Hargrove's personal space, forcing him to break the posing just to keep from getting flicked upside his freckled nose. "This how you always do it, kid? Just pose like you think you're in a magazine?"

  
The corners of Hargrove's mouth go loose. Now he's just showing his teeth. It's not aggressive, not quite, but it's not anything you could call a smile either. Hopper's not necessarily satisfied. What he'd really like to do is get those heavy eyebrows to raise in obedient concern. If an indecipherable grimace is all he's going to get, though, he'll take it; you can't always get what you want, as the radio says.

  
"That's a 10-10," comes Pam's voice, and now she sounds put off. If Hopper didn't know better, he'd swear she can tell whenever he's toeing the line, her own old lady ESP or some shit. "It's Callahan, Chief, and he hasn't called a stop in yet. I don't care if you're still eating breakfast."

  
Christ. Rolling his eyes, he starts to withdraw. Hargrove clears his throat, making him pause; the boy seems to be considering his words carefully, as that's the only plausible reason for why he'd be tonguing at a canine instead of speaking, worrying at the sharp white tip for too long.

  
He sounds careful, too. Well, maybe not careful; just focused, slow. "Don't worry, Chief, I _know_ I'm centerfold material." Then, before Hopper can figure out a justifiable reason to smack that weird vibe right out of him, his mouth triggers another smirk. "But I get you. Won't have any more trouble from me. You won't even know I live in this town."

  
"10-16," snaps Pam, and Hopper growls, straightening fully.

  
He taps the Camaro's roof once. "Let's keep it that way. I like working with guys who know the score. But you give me any hell, Hargrove, and I'm not going to like you any more. And you sure as hell aren't going to like me."

  
Hargrove stares up at him. Something bolts up the top of Hopper's spine, a hundred prickling nerve-ends set off by what he sees in the boy's bright blue eyes.

  
"Chief," crackles Pam's voice.

  
He grabs the radio with bad humor, turning to stomp back to the Blazer. "10-17, _Jesus_, Pam, I'm fucking 10-_17_."

  
She comes back sounding offended, which is a real pain, because that means his coffee will be burnt tomorrow morning. "Excuse some of us for doing our jobs, Chief, over."

  
He pulls away first, gravel spraying, but Hargrove leaves no more than a beat later; he can see the Camaro peeling away in the other direction, most assuredly going over forty-five, and grits his teeth. There's nothing for it now but to speed towards Main, hope Callahan hasn't blown his top or fumbled the stop, and tell himself there's no way he won't have a chance to tag the kid again. Next time Hargrove won't be lucky.

  
Something tugs at the back of his brain again. As he swings onto Mahogany, shooting across towards the center of town, he turns that feeling over in his mind. He's learned to pay attention to nudges. Call it patrolman's intuition, or whatever you like. When you have as many miles on your speedometer as Hopper does, something pricks you, you look into it.

  
It had been when he'd tapped the roof, tossing the words out with hardly a thought, mostly focused on what else he could speedily case of the Camaro's interior (which had been a loss; a Metallica tape on the passenger seat, a red bandanna stuffed down near the shaft. As far as Hopper knew the red bandanna meant nothing for gang colors.) 'You give me hell and I'm not going to like you,' he'd said, or something like that. 'And you sure as hell aren't going to like me.' Just throwing his weight a little, so Hargrove couldn't even pretend to be surprised when Hopper came down like a hammer next time.

  
He'd gotten a glinting smile in response, which was all right, because the kid was clearly an experienced dirtbag, which meant he'd take Hopper's cue to be civil again. Smiles meant civility.

  
Except there were those eyes, bright, bright blue.

  
_You got no idea,_ those eyes said. _You think you don't like me now. You got no _idea_ how far that could go._

  
The trouble was, Billy hadn't been looking through his shades. He'd been looking over them. Like he had no problem giving the cop a peek of the way the distant animal disdain passed through him, moving like a tiger in the grass, a flicker of stripes and then gone.

  
Which was all it was, a flicker. And he was new in town, and brash as hell, and seventeen, so it was just pointless posturing.

  
Still.

  


_You got no _idea _how unlikable I can be._

  
Later, much later, Hopper would wonder if Billy Hargrove was warning him off. Too busy with his own hell to cause trouble yet, but too dangerous to be safe, maybe he was just trying to flash his colors and be left alone. Not tiger-stripes, then; lines on a frog. Fluorescent yellow and dark slashes of blue, warning off anyone stupid enough to try and bite.

  
_Try it,_ those eyes said. _They'll fucking bury you with me._

  
He was half right.


End file.
